Crew Nights

Tear it down in double quick time
To get the eighth truck shifted 'bout midnight
The locker rooms are empty but the (Strobo Tickers?) (strobe boats?)
still spin with their pitching lights
And someone with a yellow pass
Gives out precise directions as to where and when
And here am I with a drumstick,
While young girls set to rendezvous, and be recognized again
Tomorrow is an off-day,
Be in Baltimore by Thursday is the only law.
There’s a suite down at the hotel
Reserved for making merry with connecting doors.
The lighting man’s already improvised a bar,
And printed invitations to the ball.
Off duty cops line corridors wearing Tull (two?) T-shirts proudly
on the band’s (…) wall
Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives,
Best boots and road suits and nine lives.
Feeling that it might be wrong to
Temporarily belong to the P.A. man (men?)
Some angel from the midwest is regretting being
Undressed with no suntan
His polaroid is snapping
The head carpenter is rapping on
The gates of dawn
Sitting lonely with a warm beer
The girl with dental braces wishes that she hadn’t gone.
Crew nights, no bar fights or (feeders?) (veeders?) wives
Thin walls and late (blade?) calls and nine lives.
Crew nights, no flashlights or folding knives,
Best boots and road suits and nine lives.